Cydia

For a long time now, Ryan Petrich’s Display Recorder application (a $4.99 value in Cydia) has been the top dog for screen recording for iOS. Today, a competitor has arrived; RecordMyScreen is a free and open source screen recording application created by a team of developers including John Coates, CoolStar, ProtoSphere, Nicholas Gomolion, and Brandon Etherage. The application is available in Cydia right now.

As shown above, the application includes a record and stop button, which the user can use to initiate and end a screen recording. In addition, users will notice a red recording bar at the top of the display that indicates when the recording is in progress. Tapping on the red recording bar will return the user to the screen recording application:

Obviously, there are disadvantages to having the red recording bar at the top of the display – this means less room to record the display. On the other hand, it’s a free application, so this is a trade-off that many will be willing to accept.

After the user has finished recording their display, they can head over to the Recordings tab of the application and find the video file and audio file separated from one-another. Tapping on the blue arrow to the right of the file(s) brings up sharing options. One of the options the user has is to import the recorded video to the Camera Roll for easier sharing. Users can also tap into Dropbox, Mail, or iFile for additional management/sharing:

The application also includes options that the user can configure:

Users can choose for the video size to be native sized, or half-sized. In addition, users can choose for the video orientation to be saved as a Portrait (native orientation) video, Landscape (home button to left) video, Landscape (home button to right) video, or Portrait (upside down) video. Users can also adjust the sampling rate, and change the channels between stereo and mono.

As far as functionality is concerned, this application is a great way to get screen recordings done for free. On the flip side, the application really has a lot to be desired in terms of user interface and design. If you’re looking for a fully-featured screen recorder, you will still probably prefer Ryan Petrich’s Display Recorder for all of the options it gives you, but if you’re looking for simple screen recording, then RecordMyScreen will get the job done.

The Cydia description also notes that the application is capable of running on both jailbroken and non-jailbroken devices. The application is not compatible with retina display iPads. If you're interested in seeing the source code for RecordMyScreen, it's available here.

How does this work on a non-jb device? Does it record system audio or just uses the microphone?

You need a developer account to use it on a non-jailbroken device, and it uses the microphone for now. We're trying to figure out how to record system audio for a new version soon.

Originally Posted by Scotty Manley Silberhorn

If the dev could make the red bar optional. It would be great!

Hi, I'm a developer on RecordMyScreen and the maintainer of it. In the current App Version, it's impossible to make the red bar optional. However, with a tweak like MonoBar, it won't take up more space than the regular status bar. Also, for games that hide the status bar completely, the red bar doesn't show up at all.

An app being in Cydia doesn't mean that it can't be used on a jailed device RecordMyScreen is actually only an app; there's no tweaks or anything else hooking into other parts of the system. This means that you can download the code and install it on a jailed device with Xcode if you have an iOS developer account. (As it uses private APIs, it won't be submitted to the App Store.)

Just wait a few and a new tweak version of RecordMyScreen will be released soon without the red bar!

Originally Posted by Magnum

Does it record system audio? That's all I want out of a recorder...

Originally Posted by keenpois0n

system audio would be fantastic, and I hope coolstar and the other devs can figure out a way, but Ryan petrich has said with the current idevice hardware line up, it is impossible

Ok, so I have looked on how iOS buffers it's audio, and I (think) that it may be possible to get system audio. However, I can not exactly promise this, as I still have to look into it and see if it is indeed possible.